Middleton gets start, opens against Durant

Oklahoma City - Welcome back to the Bucks starting lineup, Khris Middleton.

Oh, by the way. You're guarding Kevin Durant.

That's pretty much the news Bucks coach Larry Drew delivered to Middleton on Saturday prior to Milwaukee's game against Oklahoma City.

Middleton will replace Luke Ridnour, who has started the last five games, and rookie Giannis Antetokounmpo will slide back to shooting guard. Antetokounmpo had been playing small forward with the 6-foot-2 Ridnour in the lineup.

"We'll change it tonight, solely from a matchup standpoint," Drew said. "This Oklahoma City team is a pretty big team. We definitely have to try to match up to them as close as we can."

Middleton scored just three points in 29 minutes off the bench in the Bucks' 81-72 loss to the Chicago Bulls on Friday. He hit just 1 of 7 shots but did have eight rebounds.

Drew said both Middleton and Antetokounmpo will take turns defending Durant, the Thunder all-star.

"Chances are different guys will be assigned," Drew said. "But we're not going to be able to just focus on him because they've got too many other good players."

Ridnour had 14 points, eight assists and five rebounds against the Bulls while playing 40 minutes on Friday, after scoring in single figures the previous two games.

"He has the ability to score," Drew said. "He's a really good passer. Last night's game was kind of a weird game.

"You grab that stat sheet at the end of the game and you look at all the categories and I thought we led in most of the categories except that free throw line. We just fouled way, way too much."

The Thunder has lost two straight games and is 4-4 since Russell Westbrook went out of the lineup due to arthroscopic knee surgery. Westbrook is expected to be out until after the NBA all-star break.

"The one thing I love about Kevin is he wants to make sure everybody is involved and everybody is having success," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "Shooting too much, I wouldn't label him as a guy who is taking too many shots.

"But I did talk to him today. I like him taking threes if they're off the pass. I think he's taking too many threes that are not from a pass. Those are hard shots to make. He has the ability to make those. But if I want to criticize one area of his shot selection, it would probably be that.

"It's not major, maybe two or three a game."

The Thunder lost back-to-back road games against Utah and Denver. Durant has scored 48 points twice in the last four games, in a victory at Minnesota and against the Jazz.

"Very rarely do you have everything clicking at once," Brooks said. "Defense is what we're built on. When we hold teams to a low shooting percentage we always put ourselves in position to have a fourth-quarter game. And we're pretty good with fourth-quarter games."